The latest popular Slavic deities:

Introduction

A strange and wonderful range of fascinating deities ruling across most of Eastern Europe and Russia, from Poland and the Czech Republic to Belarus and the Ukraine.

From simple do-it-yourself Gods of Digging A Hole In The Ground to ones with three silver heads and a golden veil in a temple full of wealth, they cover a lot of ground. In Russian the word 'god' is 'bog', and we promise you will never regard bogs in the same way again. There are also a staggering number of legendary characters named 'Ivan'.

Part of their fascination is that many Slavic deities are shrouded in mystery, their true nature obliterated by time and rampant Christian conversion. Popular pagan gods were sucked into the Jesus roadshow and transmogrified into saints or worse. Slavic mythology is, in many cases, a history of trying to figure out what was going on before the Christians arrived.

Garbled tales and even invented Gods have been thrown into the mix by well-meaning but bewildered scholars attempting to reconstitute the original beliefs. We are still trying to sort out the mess. Meanwhile, enjoy the mixed-up but still marvellous maelstrom of Slavic mythology.

For an entirely different - but related - pantheon of Gods from this region, see our Baltic mythology section.

Many Gods are spread across different regions, cultures and tribes. We've tried to pin them down to a particular area if possible. But corrections are always welcome, especially from people with first-hand knowledge. So if you know the region and would like to comment, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us here.